St. John the Baptist in New Bedford celebrates final Mass

November is a “month of endings” in the Catholic Church’s liturgical year, the Rev. Jack Oliveira said during the final Mass at St. John the Baptist Church, the first Portuguese parish in North America. The Diocese of Fall River closed it Sunday.

November is a “month of endings” in the Catholic Church’s liturgical year, the Rev. Jack Oliveira said during the final Mass at St. John the Baptist Church, the first Portuguese parish in North America. The Diocese of Fall River closed it Sunday.

“Some endings are far more difficult, like this one today,” Oliveira, his voice cracking at times, said to a standing-room-only audience of longtime parishioners, priests and elected officials who came to say goodbye to the 141-year-old spiritual home of Portuguese Catholic immigrants in SouthCoast.

Many worshippers wiped tears from their eyes as they left the church, struggling to accept the Diocese of Fall River’s move to close St. John because of declining Mass attendance, mounting debt and $1.5 million worth of repairs needed for the aging church building on County Street.

“It’s devastating. Just sad. I just hope they don’t knock it down,” said Shirley DaSilva, a St. John parishioner for 42 years who attended Mass with her family and received all her sacraments there.

“Honestly, I’m surprised they closed it. I think this church has so much history and culture and such a strong parish community,” said Nick Correia, 28, a Taunton resident who grew up attending Mass at St. John.

“This was an event I couldn’t miss,” he said.

Parishioners tried for almost three years to revitalize St. John with a capital campaign drive as well as efforts to boost Sunday Mass attendance and donations.

The diocese said Bishop George Coleman gave the church an extra year to revive St. John, but in March, the bishop said the church’s pastoral and finance councils had fallen short of their goal.

However, a group of St. John parishioners — calling themselves the Friends of St. John the Baptist Church — are fighting the closure. They filed a formal appeal with Coleman last week and have vowed to take their case directly to the Vatican if necessary.

“I’m angry," said Isabel Pimentel, who along with her husband, Jose Pimentel, is among the group of parishioners fighting the closing. "We did everything (the diocese) requested of us. We met all the steps they gave us. We did everything that was asked of us, and they turned around and (closed the church). They made us work for nothing."

“I feel right now that I’m a spiritual orphan,” Isabel Pimentel added.

Besides the sense that they were not given a fair shot to save the church, the Pimentels said parishioners were never told about their parish’s financial difficulties until they began hearing rumors in 2009 that the diocese was looking to shut it down.

John Kearns, the spokesman for the Diocese of Fall River, said after Sunday’s Mass that St. John underwent a thorough evaluation four years ago, and that the bishop had hoped the church could have been saved.

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“It’s sad. No doubt about it. No one likes to see a parish close, and certainly it was Bishop Coleman’s hope that it could have been successful,” said Kearns, who added that the diocese has not decided what it will do with the building.

Sunday’s final Mass, which was celebrated in English and Portuguese, featured a full choir that sang some hymns in Latin. Eight priests — all of them native St. John parishioners who celebrated their first Masses there — concelebrated Sunday’s liturgy with Oliveira.

Among Sunday’s priest-celebrants was Monsignor Stephen J. Avila, who served as an altar boy at St. John the Baptist and later celebrated his first Mass in the church in 1981.

“Obviously, it’s bittersweet for me,” said Avila, pastor of St. Mary’s Church in Mansfield.

“I wanted more to come back to celebrate the faith of this community and how it impacted my life and the life of all the families,” Avila said.

The packed crowd Sunday was what all weekend Masses used to look like, recalled Avila, who noted the stories of the Portuguese immigrants who established the parish in 1871.

“Their faith meant so much to them. This church became the center of their lives,” Avila said. “It’s not the center of people’s lives anymore.”

In a particularly poignant moment, just before the final Eucharist prayers were said Sunday, all the books containing the records of the baptisms, first communions, confirmations, weddings and funerals performed at St. John were brought to the altar.

Oliveira, who is also the pastor at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in New Bedford, urged parishioners to bring their faith and service to whatever parishes they will now be joining.